74 |
d) In 1748-1749 there was a Miami village under the young chief Le Gris on the upper Tippecanoe River. This village had probably been there for several years. Le Gris and his mother died of smallpox in the winter of 1751-1752, but his village on the upper Tippecanoe apparently continued in existence until 1757. After that date there is no mention of Miamis on the Tippecanoe. By 1778 the village of "Le Petit Gris" (Le Gris' son?) was situated near present Fort Wayne, Indiana and was one of two Miami villages in that vicinity, the other one being Kekionga.
e) In 1790 Pacane, chief at Kekionga, removed west of the Mississippi with a small band of 34 persons. Hibou, another Miami chief, also removed to Spanish territory west of the Mississippi about this same time. Both returned to Indiana, ca. 1800.
f) The Miami village on the St. Joseph River of Michigan, which the French had persuaded some of the Miami from Kekionga to establish around 1720, continued in existence longer than any of the other temporary villages listed above, but always remained small. It started with a population of 100 men and their families. In 1736 it had a population of 10 men and their families. In 1749 it consisted of five or six cabins of Miamis who were reported as having been at St. Joseph River for several years, but prior to that as having been members of Le Gris' upper Tippecanoe band. In 1757 there were still "a few Myamis" trading at the French post on St. Joseph River of Michigan, but after 1757 there are no more references to
75 |
Miamis living on that River.
The "Small Village of the Twightwees" six miles up from the mouth of the Eel River, noted by George Croghan in 1765 and visited by Henry Hamilton in 1778 is not included in the above list of temporary Miami villages outlying from Kekionga, the main Miami settlement throughout the period 1718-1794. Although Croghan referred to the Indians on lower Eel River as Twightwees (the name the English used at that time for the Miamis) and although Hamilton referred to these same Indians, not only as "the Savages of Eel River," but also as "The Miamis of Riviere a l'anguille" we conclude that these Eel River Indians represented, even in 1765 and 1778, a group apart from the Miamis proper. This conclusion was reached for the following reasons:
a) The names of many Miami chiefs and leaders were mentioned frequently in the literature of the 1760's, 1770's, and 1780's. None of these names were associated with the Eel River Indians, nor did any of the Miami chiefs of these decades speak for the Eel Rivers.
b) Kiskatassia, "chief from the Eel River" who attended a council at Detroit in 1782, did not attend in conjunction with Miami leaders, but with a Wea chief.
c) In two lists dated 1759 and 1774 the Miamis are noted as living on the Maumee River, only; other lists made before and after these dates make no mention of a Miami village on Eel River.
Since the Eel Rivers were a group apart, we have therefore omitted mention of the Eel River village in the
76 |
enumeration of outlying temporary Miami villages given above.
Analysis of the directional spread of the Miamis shows that, whenever splinter groups left Kekionga to settle elsewhere east of the Mississippi between 1718 and 1790, such groups always moved in either a NNW or a SSE direction and settled, with one exception (Le Baris' small band), no farther away in a direct line from Kekionga than 80 miles. The NNW movements of Miamis to the St. Joseph River region in the vicinity of Niles, Michigan and South Bend, Indiana took them around 70 miles from Kekionga; the other NNW move of Le Gris' band to the upper Tippecanoe took this group some 40 miles NNW from Kekionga. The SSE move of La Demoiselle to Pickawillany removed that chief and his numerous followers 80 miles in a direct line from Kekionga. Le Baris and his small group, as remarked above, went farther; 138 miles in a SSE direction, almost to the mouth of the Little Miami. During the eighteenth century, then, the Miami showed a decided trend, when they made temporary moves, to go either NNW into present northern Indiana and present southwestern Michigan, or SSE into present southwestern Ohio. There is no record of Miami splinter groups ever having had any villages during the period 1710 to 1790, in any part of present central or present southern Indiana.
There are likewise no references that we know of to groups of Miamis hunting in present central or present southern Indiana during the period 1710 to 1790. La Demoiselle's Miamis of Pickawillany hunted in the winter of 1749-1750 in company with many other Indian groups some 60-80 miles north of
77 |
Pickawillany at Grand Glaize (mouth of Auglaize River) in northeastern Ohio. In 1778 the Miamis' hunting grounds were in the vicinity of Fort Miami at the head of the Maumee River. The lower Wabash River region between Terre Haute and Vincennes was such unknown terrain at this time that "Three old Miamis Indians" became lost in it. In 1790 a Miami woman traded (with what Indians, or where is not stated) 60-70 miles distant from Kekionga. However Le Gris, Miami chief at Kekionga, occasionally brought game in to Kekionga from his hunting camp during the winter of 1789-1790. This would indicate to us that Le Gris' winter camp was not many miles distant from the Miami town- in other words that it was, as the British document of 1778 stated, "On the ground where they [Miamis] reside."
From the above data we conclude that the Miamis, during the period 1710 to 1790, confined their winter hunting to northeastern Indiana and northwestern Ohio, and that they made no use of central or southern Indiana either for hunting or, as previously concluded, for living purposes.
Although Kekionga was a Miami focal point from ca. 1710 onward, two other Indian groups, Shawnees and Delawares, also had villages nearby after 1786.
After Kekionga was burnt in 1790 the Miamis fled, first to the Elkhart River in northern Indiana and thence to Detroit. They returned to the upper Maumee River however the following year. There they rebuilt their town and stayed until defeated by Wayne in 1794.
It was during this unsettled period, in 1793 to be exact,
78 |
that the Indians of the Great Lakes region, including the Miamis, declared that all lands north of the Ohio River were owned by all the "Indian nations " in common.
After the Battle of Fallen Timbers the Miamis of Le Gris' and Little Turtle's village at Kekionga settled temporarily in southern Michigan, but after 1795 they returned to northern Indiana. Their new village in northern Indiana was at the head of Eel River, some 18-20 miles northwest of present Fort Wayne, near Columbia City, Indiana. The Miamis of Pacane's and Richardville's village, after leaving Kekionga, settled near the mouth of Mississinewa River, some 50 miles southwest of Fort Wayne at Peru, Indiana.
Both of these new Miami locations were in the northern third of the present state of Indiana, in the same general region that the Miamis had used and occupied since 1710.
Population estimates for the Miami proper during the period 1710-1805 indicate a total population for this group of well over 4,000 souls. In 1750-1751, when a goodly part of the Miamis were at Pickawillany, the population of that village was "400 families [1,600 souls] & daily increasing. " Around 1757 two French memoirs gave the number of Miami warriors at Fort Miamis (Kekionga) as 150, or 600 souls. This was exclusive of a) Le Gris' considerable (?) group of Miamis on the upper Tippecanoe River, b ) the few Miamis still on the St. Joseph River of Michigan, and c) the few Miamis who had stayed on at Pickawillany after their town was destroyed. A list for 1778 gives the number of "Twightwee" warriors near Fort Miami as 250, representing a total of 1,000 souls.
79 |
Another list for 1788 ascribes 350 Miami warriors on the Maumee, or a total of 1,400 souls. Prom these figures we conclude that Miami population during the latter half of the eighteenth century amounted to around 1,200 souls.
Go to
Chapter III
Return
to Anth. Rep. Docket 317 Volume I Table of Contents
Go
to Anth. Rep. Docket 317 Volume II Table of Contents
Return to Ohio Valley -
Great Lakes Ethnohistory Archive Menu
Return to Glenn A. Black
Laboratory of Archaeology List of Publications
Return to Glenn A. Black
Laboratory of Archaeology Home
Last updated: 30
August 2000
Comments: gbl@indiana.edu
Copyright 1997, Glen Black Laboratory of Archaeology and The Trustees of Indiana University.